ART.
[SECOND NOTICE.] THE Exhibition of the Institute is of less than usual merit. There is too much of the drawing-master who looks to clean washes and short cuts, and of the imitator whose exemplar is not nature, but the too popular commodities of some brother practitioner. Of course whatever merit may be possessed by the latter has escaped the apprehension of the imitator. At the same time, the Society has sustained a real loss by the death of Mr. Sutcliffe, who in spite of obvious shortcomings was an artist in grain. Neverthe- less there is one little drawing by Mr. Hine which would alone repay a visit to the gallery of the Institute (" Beach Scene," 40). It does not present much to describe in the way of subject. There is a bit of shingle, with a quiet sea, and a distant sail or two; and, overhead, the serene sky : and the special virtue of the draw- ing lies in the rare truth and delicate beauty of its forenoon day- light. Lovers of good art will note and appreciate the great breadth of treatment, the entire freedom from disturbing artifice, and the reverential modesty that distinguish the work. "Lucerne" (40), by Mr. Skinner Prout, is a pretty drawing, with more than one passage of pleasing colour. But those great crags and mountains are treated with hardly sufficient solemnity. Prettiness is not the characteristic of the Alps : and some more severe drawing and modelling were needed for the worthy treat- ment of such a subject. It is not gloom that is desiderated, but character. Let the sun shine as brightly and as fiercely as the artist can make it. If Mr. Collier does not please as much as heretofore, he has sufficient and unwelcome excuse in severe ill- ness. Yet the purity and sobriety of colour and the sense of free space which have hitherto distinguished his drawings have not now deserted him (80, 157). Sobriety has perhaps been here allowed to freeze too nearly into colourlessness; and this is the fault which in weaker moments is most likely to assail Mr. Collier's palette. There is too great uniformity of darkness, and consequent dead- ness, in Mr. 'Mogford's shadows ; a nicer gradation is needed for the display at its full value of his undeniably keen appreciation of bright daylight hues.
"Rest" (81), by Mr. H. Herkomer, includes a female figure of exceeding beauty and grace. It is to be regretted that the artist does not trust to pure water-colour. He would at least have avoided the leper-like complexion of this drawing. His large picture, "At the Well "(184), is a work of great ability, show- ing that he is strong enough, if he would but believe it, to look at nature with his own eyes, without wearing spectacles of the Walker make ; coppery browns, coarse flesh-tints, and hard out- lines are drawbacks, and not aids. Another clever artist is Mr. Small, whose "Going to Market, Connemara" (20), pleases by its originality, notwithstanding its splotchy execution ; and whose "Early Spring" (29), though wanting in refinement, has a good general tone of colour. Mr. Beavis is spirited, as usual (129), though he scarcely allows sufficient play of light round his figures for true open-air effect ; and Mr. Linton furnishes a well-con- sidered and carefully-wrought picture of Jonas Hanway braving public ridicule, by appearing in the street with "the first umbrella in England" (60). There are still some old-fashioned people in England (principally coachmen) who think it effeminate to put up an umbrella in the rain. The Thames pleasure-boat, with its carefully costumed crew of young men, and its as carefully cos- tumed freight of young women, is becoming a frequent subject of illustration with our artists. But the blank realism with which it has hitherto been treated has not yet elevated this new edition of "youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm" above the com- monplace and the vulgar. Mr. Gregory (126) is neither better nor worse in this respect than Messrs. Calderon and Yeames at the Royal Academy.
The Exhibition of the old Society contains much that is good, besides what was noticed on a former occasion. "A Mountain Stream in North Wales" (26), by Mr. Danby, is a powerful and impressive picture. The tumbling water indeed might have been more accurately studied and more skilfully painted ; but the solemn gloom, deepening in the sky and on the mountain-side below, as the last ray of sunshine lingers for a moment on the highest crags, is given with masterly hand and true poetic feeling. "Shepherd's Land" (139) is one of those sun-lit pastoral scenes which the artist
so loves to paint,—a placid lake bounded by protecting hills, an& a jutting headland crowned with birch trees ; all bathed in after- noon sunshine, and suggesting how pleasant is the shepherd's life, sea si bona ;Cori& There is perhaps some heaviness in the blues of sky and shadows ; and though it is right not to make dexterity of manipulation serve instead of ideas, yet ideas cannot be properly or easily expressed without skill in execution, and Mr. Danby is almost too neglectful of all such skill. Two scenes on the Yorkshire coast, by Mr. Dodgson (234 and 241), attest once more the keenness• and comprehensiveness of his observation and the ripeness of his art. The well-defined forms and true ferruginous hue of those great cliffs, and the awful shades of their wave-worn caverns, need no in- terpreter to assert their truthfulness or explain their beauty. Whether in sunshine or in storm, the artist has equally understood: their grandeur, and conveyed his impression to the paper. Not less admirable is the sweet repose of his " Darnholm " (82). Mr. Albert Goodwin is one of the most promising of the younger Associates. "The Fugitive's Rest" (66) is a scene in an upland+ park (say near Arundel or Chichester), and the title is derived> from a truant schoolboy, who has fallen asleep on the grass, and' become the object of timid curiosity to a herd of fallow deer. The figures, however, are only accessory, for the picture is land- scape proper ; and is a very beautiful example of mild sunshine lighting breezy wold, tall grove, and distant fiat. The quiet and' seclusion of the scene are quite in harmony with the tender colour- and delicate gradations of the picture, which, on the whole, is as. simple as it is delightful. A fiercer sun shines in Mr. Goodwin's- " Abingdon Churchyard " (15), clothing every object in a golden. haze, and producing mystery by excess of light. This, again, is quite true, and very beautiful. He exhibits several, drawings besides, among which " Weed-Burning " (50), should' be remarked for its nice variety of gray in sky and distance. Another young Associate whose progress must be watched witlb great interest is Matthew Hale. He exhibits sundry views of well-known spots in the Scotch Highlands, all denoting observant study and great refinement. The chief one of them is "Twilight after Rain" (156), wherein the thin eager atmosphere of that particular time and condition of weather are well represented. At such a time mountains tell against the sky with astonishing: distinctness ; still the sky-line of Mr. Hale's mountain is too uni- formly emphasized, and robs the bills of size and the picture of space. The anatomy of the hill-side, too, should have been more firmly articulated. These are faults which might easily be cor- rected; and meantime, it is to be noted how alive every part of the picture is with colour, and what a fine sentiment pervades the- whole. "A Giant Asleep" (109) is too brown ; but the- bare quartz top of the mountain gleaming faintly against the twilight sky in " Moonrise" (179) is very beautiful. The relative tones are exactly right. Mr. J. W. North has done what is too seldom attempted by artists ; he has- painted a landscape in winter. The tangle of decayed- creeper, the leafless trees seen across the sluggish stream, and the- foreground of brown herbage, enlivened here and there with a patch of green and lighted by two or three stars of flower, have- in his bands been combined into a beautiful little picture, very full in tone and entirely original. The female figure, dispropor- tionately large and wholly uninteresting, had been better omitted,. or if retained, lest artificially forced in blackness. It just robs the picture of the refinement which it would have otherwise possessed,. in addition to its other good qualities. Mr. W. W. Deane's agreeably coloured views of buildings, both inside and out ; Mr. Boyce's studies, always racy, if not always very interesting ; Mr. Basil Bradley's animals, whose excellent drawing deserves far better colouring ; and a beautiful little landscape by Mr. Alfred Fripp, " Corfe Castle from Poole Harbour" (238), are some of the remaining drawings, which repay more than one visit to this. best of annual picture exhibitions and best-lighted of London.
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